Sunday, October 29, 2017

it was a fabulous day, folding paper, making signatures, covering bookboard, working with book cloth, learning how to glue

the result was a lovely little little hard-bound book

the only thing i didn't like about it was the way the book block was cased in - we had to cut slits in the spine and then thread the linen tapes (or ribbon, in this case) through the slits, pulling the book-block firmly against the spine and then tying bows

i hated the look of the bows so after the class i undid them, tied knots and cut the ends short

which proved to be a dumb idea as they keep coming undone

the frayed knots can be seen quite clearly in the photo below...

for years i puttered at book-binding, improving my techniques with advice gleaned from here and there but i wasn't satisfied - they weren't as good as i knew they could be...

whilst in london this past spring i was generously taken about the city by a kindred spirit who knew all the best places to go for textiles, ribbons and trims, and paper

first stop was shepherd's book-binding

"oh to be in england in the spring-time"

especially if i could be here...

the selection of specialty papers is astounding and though i did treat myself to a few, i was really after actual book-binding tools

i did find a few of those and in addition, i treated myself to a very good book of proper book-binding techniques

over the past few weeks i've been working my through the various lessons - not difficult but definitely daunting

i've made a pamphlet book, a single folio (signature) hard bound book and now this

Thursday, October 26, 2017

the leaves are yellow and red, glorious against the bright blue sky, falling at the barest hint of a breeze

winter is not far off...

fall is without doubt my favourite time of the year, especially when it's slightly damp and there's a wooded area to walk through... smoke curling in the sky, peek-a-boo views that have been hidden since spring

i try and get out for a walk every day and though i easily managed that in the summer, this month tells a different tale

it isn't daily right now but it's as often as can be and i love it

i do my best creative thinking when i'm walking outside - just need to start carrying a pen and paper with me so i can jot some of that "brilliance" down - ha!

stitching time has been all about little pieces, tiny bits that are fiddly beyond belief but give very satisfying results

i am making cards these days, to sell at the shop where i work part-time, and have been experimenting with a few different things

below is the first one i did and though i love it, i won't be making them to sell there - for what i'll get paid, this takes way too long to do so i'm working on a simplified version

i do love little houses though, especially those made out of fabric so i'm working on a re-vamp of the design, simplifying it, wanting something equally as charming but a little quicker - maybe one house will do the trick?

I'm also wanting to make some abstract ones, cards that aren't necessarily seasonal or occasion-themed

art cards i guess

that idea is still percolating but has been fueled by something else i made a while back

the piece below is all sorts of tiny scraps of silk and lace, loosely stitched with a simple grid and now cut into three pieces

i've done a bit of stitching on one of the pieces already but am thinking that it might be worth trying out a few ideas on one of the two remaining

i love the colours and all the textures, the looseness of it all

and how fragile they feel in my hand

stitching on them is a huge challenge but i am reluctant to try and stabilize them in any way as I just don't want to detract from that soft fragility

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

when i was seven we moved to our newly built house in a completely different area of whitehorse

having lived my whole life in the downtown portion of the city, being out in the country was a new experience... businesses and sidewalks gave way to houses on large lots with loads of trees

the new school was one block away

and no longer would i leave school every noon hour to go to my grand-parent's house for lunch

i loved lunchtime

my grandfather "papa" came home from work, as did my mom - they, my grandmother, and us four kids made for a pretty lively lunch hour... i was going to miss that terribly...

but my mom had a plan and it involved the lady next door

she had three small daughters, and was very young herself... a stay-at-home mom who loved to sing whilst she worked... cooking and cleaning, baking her own bread, washing and ironing... i can never, to this day, do housework without singing "scarborough fair"

we went there for a hot lunch five times a week and again after school until mom and dad came home from work

one day she was hand embroidering on a piece of the softest flannelet... it was the yoke of a nightgown for her middle daughter... three little heads, full of wavy hair, each one different...

as she stitched she sang the poem

"wynken and blynken and nod one night sailed out on a wooden shoe..."

i never forgot it, nor have i forgotten how i felt about what she was doing... a nightgown with an embroidered yoke for a three year old?

i knew even then that wasn't a commonly thing done, even if it was 1968

devotion - and not just to her daughter, but also to the making

this poem then, for me, is all wrapped up in a beautiful telling of the imaginative workings of a child's mind, and the devotion of a mother, in time and thought in an artful practice

i've long wanted to make something inspired by that most wonderful of poems and now i've finally begun

i'm stitching the story, the poem "wynken, blynken and nod", making a little cloth book, complete with text and illustrations of my own design

it's taken me a long time to work out the construction details but i finally have a plan that i think (and hope!) will work

one page with the text written out along with a few stitched details

and a facing page that illustrates that portion of the poem

it's a bit of a challenge as there aren't really many "scenes" but i'm making the most of every nuance in the verse

the details are tiny, time consuming, repetitive

but i don't mind

some of the applique is needle turned but much of it is just overcast along the edges

it'll rough up a bit as it's handling but i'm ok with that - i think it will just add to the tactile nature of the book

the pages will be about 6' square so just the right size for little hands to hold and turn

and a nice size for a scene - simple illustrations, fun with the details

i'm not just stitching a story though... i'm stitching a memory

a lasting memory of a very special person who has had a great influence on my life, and even more clearly, on my work

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

last year i decided to try my hand at weaving and bought myself a "wee weaver"... a tiny weaving loom for weaving swatches and samples

wanting very much to take it with me on our travels to the uk, i made myself a little pouch to carry it about in

it's made up of a pieced section with embroidered seams and a plain area of light coloured linen on which i embroidered a little wren, taken from a watercolour of edith holden's

and take it i did...

on our journey, we had the amazing good fortune to meet up with the most wonderful couple, spending several days in their company whilst visiting the peaks and their lovely little village of hayfield

they wined and dined us and took us to the most wonderful places... beautiful country drives, a tour of a grand estate, a musical experience we'll forever treasure - the list goes on

we joked about their "typical english life" but they way they welcomed us into their lives for those four days was in no way typical at all

it was magical

the highlight for me was the day christine and i hiked up in the hills above hayfield - up to the moor, to the heather - to wide open spaces i'd dreamt of and read about in the words of charlotte and emily bronte

oh, that wide and windy moor... i loved it

but those were the things i knew of the moor - christine knew of another and she was keen for me to know it too

the curlew, the bird of the english moor, with a cry as distinctive and haunting as the loon of our north american lakes

a bird of place

not long into our hike, there was first a rustle, then the feathered-thrum of a bird in rapid flight and finally the sound of the curlew floated back on the wind, back to where we stood, and straight in to my own heart

i had wanted to take my little loom and weave a bit up there, to put the essence of the place into a small scrap of work, even down to using some of the grasses and plants along the path

but with the threat of rain, it was too cold to linger and so we hiked ourselves back to her cozy and warm house where, with a cup of tea and warming lunch, she played with my loom and i read from her amazing textile book collection

and so passed my favourite day in england...

i wanted to make something for christine that would embody that day, capture that memory, and seeing how much she admired the carry bag i made for my little loom, i resolved to make her one of her own

a quick sketch from an internet photo

laying in the under feathers

trying for a feathered, not furred, look

not so easy i found out, especially with these markings...

switching off to the heather now and again for a bit of something easy

at one point i lamented to my son how hard it was to stitch, to get the feathers right, to get the distinction between the wing, body and underbelly

he said at least i could be thankful christine's favourite bird wasn't the peacock...

true enough, but a small mercy!

but i persevered and each stitch brought the image of the curlew to life

i wouldn't say i did her justice, but i do think it's close, and i learned so much - there is an order to thread-painting that i think makes it easier, and whilst there is a very strong desire for "exactness", i am learning that "representational" is often a better way to go

Saturday, July 22, 2017

must be a holdback from childhood but i find myself drawn to little bits and pieces of this and that...

perhaps it stems from watching my mom and a neighbour lady sewing and stitching and wanting to do a little of that myself - the only materials i had to work with were their cast-offs, the scraps of fabric and thread normally destined for the garbage were given to me instead to do with what i would

some of you may remember the cloth i was making a while back where each day i would stitch on a scrap... i began it in mid-february of last year and finished it in the cotswolds at the end of april this year... i left it in england, in very good hands - my friend christine who saved it from having to be anything but what it was - a piece of muslin with scraps stitched that formed a sort of square...

coming home, i was at a loss - not for the cloth but for the practice - the daily endeavour... working patiently and slowly, making something substantial out of not very much

letting ideas percolate for a while, i remembered a calendar book i had that had nice large spaces, two for each day

one to write in, one for a stitched sample

and so a new daily practice was begun...

i love that i have space to write - "annotate your samples" mrs. ruane says

and she is right - sometimes i think the annotations are the best part

some days an idea comes easily - other days it's a struggle

through doing this i am learning a little bit about what i like and lot about what i don't

texture is huge

lace, especially when it's tattered and torn, "scratty" i like to say

soft faded colours

rumpled fabrics

a bit of stitching

my least favourite are the few that have stitch only

my most favourite are when all three are present

some days it's been a grind - some of these have taken more than an hour - they're usually the ones i like the best though so i recognize the value of the time spent

more than anything though, the pages, as they fill up and accumulate, are a delight to flip through

a true delight...

i've secured the swatches at the top with tiny knots - the bottoms are free so i can lift the swatch and see the underside - it makes them a little more fragile as the pages are turned but for now i'll leave them loose - i don't know about you but there's something wonderful about being able to look at the back of a stitched piece

a quote i like

“i have dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind." - emily bronte, wuthering heights